This Is Not A Test!

From Thomas Friedman's article in the NYT today:

Friends, this is not a test. Economically, this is the big one. This is August 1914. This is the morning after Pearl Harbor. This is 9/12. Yet, in too many ways, we seem to be playing politics as usual.

...the Republican Party behaves as if it would rather see the country fail than Barack Obama succeed. Rush Limbaugh, the de facto G.O.P. boss, said so explicitly, prompting John McCain to declare about President Obama to Politico: “I don’t want him to fail in his mission of restoring our economy.” The G.O.P. is actually debating whether it wants our president to fail. Rather than help the president make the hard calls, the G.O.P. has opted for cat calls. It would be as if on the morning after 9/11, Democrats said they wanted no part of any war against Al Qaeda — “George Bush, you’re on your own.” Read more...

If you think about it, the phrase "this is not a test" works here on two levels. First the obvious: as Friedman points out, this is not a test to determine how we could/should respond in case of emergency, this is an emergency. Second, this isn't a problem given on a test in school. There is no need to keep your eyes on your own paper - I think it is safe to say that no one will accuse politicians of cheating if they work together.